{"id":136,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=136"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:08","slug":"35-yoga-and-skill-in-works-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16\/35-yoga-and-skill-in-works-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-35_Yoga and Skill in Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n\t\tYoga<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\nand Skill in Works<\/font><\/span>
\n 
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/b><\/p>\n

\n                                                                    
\nYoga is skill in
\nworks.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>                                                                                                             Gita<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

                       
\n<\/span>Y<\/font><\/span><\/b>OGA<\/font>,
\nsays the Gita, is skill in works, and by this phrase the ancient Scripture meant
\nthat the transformation of mind and being to which it gave the name of Yoga
\nbrought with it a perfect inner state and faculty out of which the right
\nprinciple of action and the right spiritual and divine result of works emerged
\nnaturally like a tree out of its seed. Certainly, it did not mean that the
\nclever general or politician or lawyer or shoemaker deserves the name of Yogin;
\nit did not mean that any kind of skill in works was Yoga, but by Yoga it
\nsignified a spiritual condition of universal equality and God-union and by the
\nskill of the Yogic worker it intended a perfect adaptation of the soul and its
\ninstruments to the rhythm of the divine and universal Prakriti liberated from
\nthe shackles of egoism and the limitations of the sense-mind.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Essentially, Yoga is a generic name for the processes and the result of
\nprocesses by which we transcend or shred off our pre- sent modes of being and
\nrise to a new, a higher, a wider mode of consciousness which is not that of the
\nordinary animal and intellectual man. Yoga is the exchange of an egoistic for a
\nuniversal or cosmic consciousness lifted towards or informed by the
\nsupra-cosmic, transcendent Unnameable who is the source and support of all
\nthings. Yoga is the passage of the human thinking animal towards the
\nGod-consciousness from which he has descended. In that ascent we find many
\nlevels and stages, plateau after plateau of the hill whose summit touches the
\nTruth of things; but at every stage the saying of the Gita applies in an ever
\nhigher degree. Even a little of this new law and inner order delivers the soul
\nout of the great peril by which it had been overtaken in its worldward descent,
\nthe peril of the ignorance by which the unillumined intellect even when it is
\nkeenest or sagest must ever be bound and limited, of the sorrow and sin from
\nwhich the unpurified heart, even when it wears the richest purple of aspiration
\nand feeling,\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-291<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

must ever suffer soil and wound
\nand poverty, and of the vanity of its works to which the undivinised will of
\nman, even when it is most vehement and powerful or Olympian and victorious, must
\neternally be subject. It is the utility of Yoga that it opens to us a gate of
\nescape out of the vicious circle of our ordinary human existence.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>The idea of works, in the thought of the Gita, is the widest possible.
\nAll action of Nature in man is included, whether it be internal or external,
\noperate in the mind or use the body, seem great or seem little. From the toil of
\nthe hero to the toil of the cobbler, from the labour of the sage to the simple
\nphysical act of eating, all is included. The seeking of the Self by thought, the
\nadoration of the Highest by the emotions of the heart, the gathering of means
\nand material and capacity and the use of them for the service of God and man
\nstand here on an equal footing. Buddha sitting under the Bo-tree and conquering
\nthe illumination, the ascetic silent and motionless in his cave, Shankara
\nstorming through India debating with all men and preaching most actively the
\ngospel of inaction are all from this point of view doing great and forceful
\nwork. But while the outward action may be the same, there is a great internal
\ndifference between the working of the ordinary man and the working of the Yogin,
\n\u2014 a difference in the state of the being, a difference in the power and the
\nfaculty, a difference in the will and temperament.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>What we do, arises out of what we are. The existent is conscious of what
\nhe is; that consciousness formulates itself as knowledge and power; works are
\nthe result of this twofold force of being in action. Mind, life and body can
\nonly operate out of that which is contained in the being of which they are
\nforces. This is what we mean when we say that all things act according to their
\nnature. The divine Existence is pure and unlimited being in possession of all
\nitself, it is sat; <\/i>whatever it puts forth in its limitless purity of
\nself-awareness is truth of itself, satya; <\/i>the divine knowledge is
\nknowledge of the Truth, the divine Will is power of the Truth, the divine
\nworkings are words and ideas of the Truth realising themselves in manifold forms
\nand through many stages and in infinite relations. But God is not limited or
\nbound by any particular working or any moment of time or any\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-292<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

field of space or any law of
\nrelation, because He is universal and infinite. Nor is He limited by the
\nuniverse; for His infinity is not cosmic, but supracosmic.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>But the individualised being is or acts as if he were so bound and
\nlimited, because he treats the particular working of existence that he is and
\nthe particular moment of time and field of space in which it is actually
\noperating and the particular conditions which reign in the working and in the
\nmoment and in the field as if they were self-existent realities and the binding
\ntruth of things. Himself, his knowledge, his force and will, his relations with
\nthe world and his fellows, his need in it and his desire from them he treats as
\nthe sufficient truth and reality, the point of departure of all his works, the
\ncentral fact and law of his universe. And from this egoistic error arises an
\nall-vitiating falsehood. For the particular, the individual can have no
\nself-existence, no truth, no valid force except in so far as it reflects rightly
\nand relates and conforms itself justly to the universal, to the all-being, the
\nall-knowledge, the all-will and follows its true drift towards self-realisation
\nand vast delight in itself. Therefore the salvation of the individual lies in
\nhis universalising himself; and this is the lesson which life tries always to
\nteach him, but the obstinate ego is always unwilling to learn; for the universal
\nis not any group or extended ego, not the family, community, nation or even all
\nmankind, but an infinite far surpassing all these littlenesses.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Nor is the universalising of himself sufficient for liberation, although
\ncertainly it will make him practically more free and in his being nearer to the
\ntrue freedom. To put himself in tune with the universal is a step, but beyond
\nthe universal and directing and determining it is the supracosmic infinity; for
\nthe universe also has no self-existence, truth or validity except as it
\nexpresses the divine Being, Knowledge, Will, Power, Delight of Him who surpasses
\nall universe, so much that it can be said figuratively that with a petty
\nfragment of His being and a single ray of His consciousness He has created all
\nthese worlds. Therefore the universalised mind must look up from its cosmic
\nconsciousness to the Supernal and derive from that all its sense of being and
\nmovement of works. This is the fundamental truth from which the Yogic
\nconsciousness starts; it helps the individual to universalise\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-293<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

himself and then to transcend
\nthe cosmic formula. And this transformation acts not only on his status of being
\nbut on his active consciousness in works.<\/p>\n

     <\/span>           
\n<\/span>The Gita tells us that equality of soul and mind is Yoga and that this
\nequality is the foundation of the Brahman-state, that high infinite
\nconsciousness to which the Yogin aspires. Now equality of mind means
\nuniversality; for without universality of soul there may be a state of
\nindifference or an impartial self- control or a well-governed equality of
\ntemperament, but these are not the thing that is meant. The equality spoken of
\nis not indifference or impartiality or equability, but a fundamental oneness of
\nattitude to all persons and all things and happenings because of the perception
\nof all as the One. Such equality, it is erroneously thought, is incompatible
\nwith action. By no means; this is the error of the animal and the intellectual
\nman who thinks that action is solely possible when dictated by his hopes, fears
\nand passions or by the self-willed preferences of the emotion and the intellect
\njustifying themselves by the illusions of the reason. That might be the fact if
\nthe individual were the real actor and not merely an instrument or secondary
\nagent; but we know well enough, for science and philosophy assure us of the same
\ntruth, that the universal is the Force which acts through the simulacrum of our
\nindividuality. The individual mind, pretending to choose for itself with a
\nsublime ignorance and disregard of the universal, is obviously working on the
\nbasis of a falsehood and by means of an error and not in the knowledge and the
\nwill of the Truth. It cannot have any real skill in works; for to start from a
\nfalsehood or half-truth and work by means of blunders and arrive at another
\nfalsehood or half-truth which we have immediately to change, and all the while
\nto weep and struggle and suffer and have no sure resting-place, cannot surely be
\ncalled skill in works. But the universal is equal in all and therefore its
\ndeterminations are not self-willed preferences but are guided by the truth of
\nthe divine will and knowledge which is unlimited and not subject to incapacity
\nor error.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Therefore the state of his being by which the Yogin differs from the
\nordinary man, is that by which he rises from the foundation of a perfect
\nequality to the consciousness of the one exis-\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-294<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

tence in all and embracing all
\nand lives in that existence and not in the walls of his body or personal
\ntemperament or limited mind. Mind and life and body he sees as small enough
\nthings which happen and change and develop in his being. Nay, the whole universe
\nis seen by him as happening within himself, not in his small ego or mind, but
\nwithin this vast and infinite self with which he is now constantly identified.
\nAll action in the universe he sees as arising in this being, out of the divine
\nExistence and under the stress of the divine Truth, Knowledge, Will and Power.
\nHe begins to participate consciously in its working and to see all things in the
\nlight of that divine truth and governance; and even when his own actions move on
\ncertain lines rather than others, he is not bound by them or shut to the truth
\nof all the rest by his own passions and preferences, gropings and seekings and
\nrevolts. It is evident that such an increasing wideness of vision must mean an
\nincreasing knowledge. And if it be true that knowledge is power, it must mean
\nalso an increasing force for works. Certainly, it would not be so, if the Yogin
\ncontinued to act by the light of his individual reason and imagination and will;
\nfor the intellect and all that depends on it can only work by virtue of rigid
\nlimitations and exclusive determinations. Accordingly, the continued activity of
\nthe unillumined intellect and its servants conflicts with the new state of
\nconsciousness and knowledge which arises out of this larger existence, and so
\nlong as they remain active, it cannot be perfect or assured; for the
\nconsciousness is being continually pulled down to the lower field of ego-habit
\nby the claim of their narrow workings. But the Yogin ceases, progressively, to
\nact by the choice of his intellectual or emotional nature. Another light dawns,
\nanother power and presence intervenes, other faculties awake in the place of the
\nold human-animal combination.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>As the state of being changes, the will and temperament must necessarily
\nbe modified. Even from an early stage the Yogin begins to subordinate his
\npersonal will or it becomes naturally subordinate to the sense of the supreme
\nWill which is attracting him upward. Ignorantly, imperfectly, blunderingly it
\nmoves at first, with many recoils and relapses into personal living and action,
\nbut in time it becomes more in tune with its Source and eventually the personal
\nwill merges upward and all ways into the\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-295<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

universal and infinite and obeys
\nimplicitly the transcendent. Nor does this change and ascension and expanding
\nmean any annihilation of the will-power working in the individual, as the
\nintellectual man might imagine; but rather it increases it to an immense
\nforcefulness while giving it an infinite calm and an eternal patience. The
\ntemperament also is delivered from all leash of straining and desire, from all
\nurge of passion and pain of wilful self-delusion. Desire, even the best, turns
\nalways to limitation and obscuration, to some eager exclusive choice and
\npressure, to some insistent exclusion of what should not be excluded and
\nimpatient revolt against the divine denials and withholdings. It generates anger
\nand grief and passion and obstinacy, and these bring about the soul\u2019s loss of
\nits divine memory or steadfast consciousness of itself and its self-knowledge
\nand its equal vision of the truth of things. Therefore desire and its brood are
\nincompatible with skill in works and their persistence is the sign of an
\nimperfect Yoga.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Not only must the will and fundamental knowledge-view of things change,
\nbut a new combination of faculties take the place of the old. For if the
\nintellect is not to do all our mental work for us or to work at all in its
\nunillumined state and if the will in the form of desires, wishes, intellectual
\npreferences is not to deter- mine and enforce our action, then it is clear that
\nother powers of knowledge and will must awaken and either replace the intellect
\nand the mental preference or illumine and guide the one and transform and
\ndominate the other. Otherwise either the action may; be nil or else its impulses
\nmechanical and chaotic, even if the static being is blissfully enlarged; for
\nthey will well up indeed out of the universal and not the personal, but out of
\nthe universal in its lower formula which permits the erratic action of the heart
\nand mind. Such faculties and new combinations of faculties can and do emerge and
\nthey are illuminations and powers that are in direct touch and harmony with the
\nlight and power of the Truth; there- fore in proportion as they manifest and
\ntake hold of their functions, they must increase the force, subtlety and
\nperfection of the Yogin\u2019s skill in works.\n<\/p>\n

             
\nBut the greatest skill in works of Yoga is that which to the
\nanimal man seems its greatest ineptitude. For all this difficult\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-296<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

attainment,
\nthe latter will say, may lead to anything you please, but we have to lose our
\npersonal life, abandon our personal objects, annul our personal will and
\npleasure and without these life cannot be worth living. Now the object of all
\nskill in works must be evidently to secure the best welfare either of ourselves
\nor of others or of all. The ordinary man calls it welfare to secure momentarily
\nsome transient object, to wade for it through a sea of grief and suffering and
\npainful labour and to fall from it again still deeper into the same distressful
\nelement in search of a new transient object. The greatest cunning of Yoga is to
\nhave detected this cheat of the mind and its desires and dualities and to have
\nfound the way to an abiding peace, a universal delight and an all-embracing
\nsatisfaction, which can not only be enjoyed for oneself but communicated to
\nothers. That too arises out of the change of our being; for the pure truth of
\nexistence carries also in it the unalloyed delight of existence, they are
\ninseparable in the status of the infinite. To use the figures of the Vedic
\nseers, by Yoga Varuna is born in us, a vast sky of spiritual living, the Divine
\nin his wide existence and infinite truth; into that wideness Mitra rises up,
\nLord of Light and Love who takes all our activities of thought and feeling and
\nwill, links them into a Divine harmony, charioteers our movement and dictates
\nour works; called by this wideness and this harmony Aryaman appears in us, the
\nDivine in its illumined power, uplifted force of being and all- judging
\neffective will; and by the three comes the indwelling Bhaga, the Divine in its
\npure bliss and all-seizing joy who dispels the evil dream of our jarring and
\ndivided existence and possesses all things in the light and glory of Aryaman\u2019s
\npower, Mitra\u2019s love and light, Varuna\u2019s unity. This divine Birth shall be
\nthe son of our works; and than creating this what greater skill can there be or
\nwhat more practical and sovereign cunning?<\/p>\n

\nPage-297<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yoga and Skill in Works                                                                        Yoga is skill in works.                                                                                                               Gita                           YOGA, says the Gita, is skill in works, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","wpcat-5-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}